Winter Semester Tomorrow (!)

Hey, it's me. The person that writes this blog. Long time no see. My bad.


Just thought I'd throw a post together because I start my winter semester tomorrow (!) and I don't think I'll have much time to do much writing after that starts. The winter semester is supposed to be pretty crazy -- they cram just as much Japanese as you learn in the fall semester into one month and call it the "Intensive Winter Program." Pair that with the fact that I am taking "Intensive Japanese" classes and it means that this month is going to be double intense. Bring it.

Well, I haven't really been doing too much during my break. I've spent a lot of time meeting with one of my Japanese friends who is supposed to be "job searching," which all third year college students pretty much have to do, but she doesn't really want to. So instead we hang out. And not really hang out as much as study together at random cafes and restaurants. It's good for both of us because it gets me out of the house, which is important since no one is home all day (it's kind of lonely), and it forces her to do some studying and work on her job searching.

Other than that, I've gone to various onsens with my host family and done a little bit of studying. I didn't really study as much as I wanted to, but I did make it all of the way through one of my grammar books, which is huge. Go me.

Right now my big project is that I am planning a short trip to Tokyo in the beginning of March. The association that gave me a $4000 scholarship to study in Japan is hosting a special "job fair" for scholarship recipients only, so I really want to go there and see if I can make any good connections. There's also another guy at Kangaku that got the same scholarship, and we're pretty good friends, so we're going to go together. I told him I'd take responsibility of setting it all up, though. It's actually a lot more fun than I thought. When I went to Hakone, I let my friend do all of the planning and just kind of did what I was told. It's cool to be the one in charge this time.

I'm trying to use my connections for this trip, too. My host mom's parents are special members to a certain chain of hotels, so I'm trying to see if we can get a room at one of those hotels when we stay in Tokyo. That way it would be like $30 a night to stay at a really nice hotel, instead of staying at a creepy hostel or something. And I've already checked all of the subway maps and seen how to get to-and-from different places. It helps that I've also been to Tokyo once already so I know a little about the subways :)

Hmm what else??? I had a birthday at my house, and it was fun. Not too many people were able to come, but those who did said they enjoyed it. I think my host kids also had a lot of fun. I was actually surprised that the party consisted of 3 exchange students (including me) and 4 Japanese students.

And the other day I went to a nearby onsen with some of my Japanese friends, which was really nice. It made me realize how many interesting places I still have to visit that are close to where I live. I'll have to start exploring more!

Finally, my biggest accomplishment is that I have completely taken up reading Japanese manga. My Japanese friend that I study with a lot is a complete manga buff, so she started recommending me series that she thought I should read. Right now I'm reading one about basketball, and it's really interesting. It's a great way for me to entertain myself and increase my reading comprehension and conversation comprehension all at the same time. And I figure that once I feel like I have the hang of simple manga series, I can move onto more complicated ones, then maybe eventually get to the point where I can read novels (which is my goal). Right now the simple, focused manga series I'm reading is nice, though, because it gives me a chance to read what I learn somewhere other than in a textbook. Yay.

Alright. I think that's all I'm going to write for right now. I'll try to post during my winter semester, so keep an eye out for that! Bye!